ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to what the legal philosopher H. L. A. Harthas to say about providing a sociological understanding of law and to apply Hart's theory in relation to a specific area of law. Hart, as a legal philosopher influenced by linguistic philosophy, works out a distinction between different rules and, in particular, pays regard to their social function. There is a constant need for a better worked-out understanding of jurisprudential descriptions of valid law if sociology of law and jurisprudence are to learn from each other. One interesting process, according to Hart, Teubner and Luhmann, is to understand when what Teubner calls 'socially diffuse law' set by means of social norms and communication becomes positive autopoietic law through pre-positivistic partially autonomous law. A person who seriously violates another person by means of a crime involving an assault on his person, liberty, peace or honour, shall compensate the damage that the violation causes.
